True, silence, that’s kind of what I was thinking.

It just seems a lot like that vial Colin Powell held up before the UN.

They are still trying to wear us out.

Anyway, could be good for a classroom discussion.

To sorta echo silence (and just how do you echo silence??? no clue). An Israeli airstrike would have destroyed or at least, created a holey building. If I was up to no good, sure, I would get rid of any evidence left over in the building’s remains. There would probably be evidence of nuclear activity in the damage that any IAEA inspector would easily recoginize.

The thing is, if I wasn’t doing anything fishy, i would…..clean the site up anyways. There may be material I could salvage and use somewhere, or cleaning up the site would allow you to rebuild on that site whenever.

I just recently watched two men with one crane completely demolish a decent sized apartment building across from the school of social work at UM (Marcy would know the apartments), and all debris removed within a month. Albright suggests that they â€quickly removed evidence of the project.†Hiding evidence or not, it doesn’t take a month and a half for normal construction companies to completely raze a building to leave smooth dirt. It is almost like Albright is pushing a narrative that they were up to no good to fit conventional wisdom.

Is Syria supposed to be guilty as charged by doing what many normal disaster recovery con(de)struction crews would do? Its almost like it is up to Syria to prove they weren’t dabbling in nuclear tech by allowing IAEA inspectors to pore through the rubble.

The only thing I would say is suspicious about that photo is that they cleaned up the rubble, and it appears there are no construction equipment left leaving a clean site. On the other hand, the site could easily have been cleaned within the past month and half and the crews have left the site. I would like to hear what the photo should have looked like if he believed that Syria was not working on a nuclear reactor on that site.

The intel community could have gotten higher res satellite photos a lot sooner and more frequently, and they probably have in fact done so. So why is this particular photo being shopped now?

This is kind of reminiscent of when CNN published identical photos of supposed nuclear sites in Iran and North Korea.

Something that might be silly but FWIW…

Look at the pictures from right to left instead of from the western cultural standard of left to right. What I saw, (IMHO), is a before and after set. The pic on the right is from before the building was built and the left pic is of the building, post completion, standing there, minding it’s own business.

The best cons, are the simplest ones.

If you look at the shadows to the right of the building site you will notice that the â€cleared†area is now HIGHER than it was before…. Also note the hole with shadow near the edge of where the structure stood. The building has not been razed … it has been buried…

NONE of this has anything to do with what the building was FOR tho…

I cannot make out anything either with these photos alone. In order for me to decide, I need all the worlds’ communications covering the last 3 months in any language even if I do not have the manpower to translate them all.

The photo on the right has to be after. There’s less of the hill to the right of the building.

There is, however, no proof that there was a reactor under construction. All I can see is a building of some kind with a square horizontal cross-section and enough height, as indicated by its shadow, to be several stories tall.

In the US, when demolishing concrete or cinderblock structures, they tend to run the non-metal debris (including glass) through a crusher and turn it into sand and gravel that can be re-used in new structures.

Kim said: â€There’s also been reporting that enriched materials, even a warhead, were sent from NK and that the Israelis provided soil samples as evidence of illicit nuclear materials:

http://article.nationalreview&…..U2Y2ViMWU=â€

I would take anything ever written in the NRO with a large dose of salt.

They have a very serious agenda to translate any feverish imaginings into a mushroom cloud reality.

The idea that the North Koreans â€transferred†a nuclear warhead to Syria is at best absurd.

First, the NK’s attempted nuclear weapons test was what the experts call a â€fizzleâ€. That is, the nuclear material failed to generate sufficient energy to actually explode. So you see, the NK have yet to actually build a nuclear something than goes â€boomâ€.

Secondly, the NK are a long way from â€weaponizing†any nuclear device that they build onto a missile. It takes a lot of highly sophisticated engineering and much trial-and-error design and fabrication before one can reduce the size of a nuclear device to mount it on a very small (relatively) fragile platform such as a missile.

Thirdly, Syria ain’t got nothing to pay for such a hypothetical NK weapon. They ain’t got no oil, no foriegn exchange dollars, no nothing. How likely is it that NK would give away something so valuable for just Syria’s enthusiasm?

Of course Iran could’ve paid for it, but then why wouldn’t it simply acquire it for itself?

Lastly, knowing that the US and many others in the EU would more than just frown on such a nuclear weapon transfer, and would be highly diligent in using all of their Intelligence services to snoop something like this out, how likely is that Syria would make itself an immediate military target to everybody from the US on down to Lichtenstein?

Many experts in the field of black intelligence propaganda have come out publicy and assailed this as a likely PR campaign with obvious fingerprints from the very same neocon-artists who brought us Saddam’s WMD.

Caveat Emptor! War with the Axis of Evil is the goal. Policy will be fixed around that goal. Not the other way around.

orionATL, I’m not seeing evidence of a large, deep hole at all.
I read aerial photos for a living; I’ve seen holes in the ground and hills from small to mountainous, and I’m not seeing either a hole or a mound. The location where the structure was appears to be fairly flat.
(These are fairly decent photos, actually: better than some of the stuff I deal with. We have, on the high end, one-meter resolution; the low end is 10m. These look like 1-3m resolution.)

It is impossible to believe that this was not part and parcel of U.S. policy, as was the great Israeli adventure into Lebanon last year. Remember that great â€we’re not done bombing yet†quote by the virgin Condi? What was really going on with Syria? This had to dovetail with something that Bushco. was up to, which these days involves primarily Iran. Is there a tie to the Barksdale, LA missing nuclear missles just a few days later or was the proximity in timing of these 2 events is just a coincidence?

The picture on the left is that of normal brain cells.

The picture on the right is the brain cells of someone high on starting a disatrous war every four years. I’d bet they came from Cheney. Or maybe from John â€Its the year of Iran and we only got 2 months left†Hannah.

Reminds me of the trailers that we KNEW were mobile weapons facilities.

Nuclear facilities involve the building of very substantial concrete structure – really really thick concrete with lots of rebar and such. Even the small university reactors I’ve seen have impressive amounts of concrete.

It seeems to me that if this were such a site, a photo taken shortly after the bombing would have clearly showed the remains of the requisite concrete. This quick clean up pony show is pure BS, proof for the gullible.

Any one want an oceanfront lot in Arizona?

I do however find it interesting that the Syrian’s have been so silent on the matter. Have they put anything out on this? I don’t buy the nuke story, but I do wonder what this was all about. I don’t see it as a pure red herring attack.

Dismayed–

The Syrians, not long ago, tried to say that the site was an agricultural research facility, but, that’s no indication that their assertions are simply to hide a nuclear facility.

As I suggested, this attack by the Israelis could have been for entirely different reasons, and that the evidence they purport to have is a smokescreen. The before photo doesn’t show finished roads, just graded paths suitable for construction, so, this seems very much like construction in progress (why, then, deliver nuclear materials to a site still being constructed?), and the Israelis may have been worried about something else entirely–say, a new military communications center, or a new spy shop too close to them for comfort. Or, a new research lab for who knows what purpose? None of those things would be ventures the Syrians would want to advertise for security reasons.

It’s curious that the press is picking up on the â€razed†keyword, based on the before and after photos. There’s lots of light gray material around, so, there’s an assumption that it’s ash (I made that assumption, too, earlier). But, it could just as easily be pulverized concrete from the bombing, drifting to the north with the wind. Anyone posited that? The darker areas of the center of the site could simply be where it was scraped away to clear the site–because they intend to rebuild it.

It could have had perfectly legitimate purposes (in terms of commonly-defined national security parameters), but the Israelis thought it a potential threat to their military control of the region and decided to bomb it. Look at it this way–asserting that it was a secret nuclear facility gives an Israeli attack a patina of legitimacy. No one in the international community complains too much, and the Syrians don’t make too much of it because they don’t want to say anything about what they actually were doing at the site. For all we know, a year from now, that building roof might have been bristling with antennas trying to snag Israeli military sigint, and the Israelis knew that bombing it after the fact would be an obvious act of aggression.

Lots of possibilities, but, frankly, nuclear is way down on the list of likely candidates. Syria has too much to lose by doing so now. They’ve been happy to help the US in its â€GWOT†without getting much credit for it (ala Mahar Arar), and, frankly, I don’t think they have the money to fund a bomb program. They have virtually no oil revenues (what oil they do have is mostly going for domestic consumption), and, of all the countries in the Middle East with a legitimate need for alternative power production, it would be Syria–their oil supplies are going to be exhausted in less than a decade by some estimates–so, why would they begin a surreptitious bomb program when they could begin an above-board nuclear energy program under the terms of the NPT, and still gain knowledge of the technology?

More to the point, why would they seek bomb technology through North Korea (which has no demonstrated capacity to build a working, weaponized atomic bomb) when they must have some connections to Pakistan, which does?

Doesn’t pass the smell test.

I’m sticking with my theory; Israelis bombed part of a Syrian Air Force base, maybe to get rid of some SAMs and to test their (Israeli) ability to jam Syrias radars, radars which are the same as those Iran has.

Combined with the July 26th fire/explosion/Israeli drone crash/whatever in the Syrian chemical weapons factory, it has been a good if coincidental quarter for Israel.

Cheney likes Israel bombing Syria as well: it got China to drop out of Condi’s peace talks. Stephen Haddley is loving it as well – he stovepipped the sat pix (not these, the ones that started it al) past dozens of people who would normally be in the loop, on the way to another trumped up war. Colin Powell is having deja vu, as are all of us.

First, don’t the Syrians have the right to build a nuclear reactor? Under article IV of the NPT, it would seem that they would. But who knows if this was even a nuclear site?

The U.S. has violated the NPT under Article VI: â€to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.â€

It has also violated it with its recent nuclear agreement with India.

Then there is the case of the criminal Israelis who have 200 or more nukes. Why is there never any mention of their terror weapons and never any suggestion that they should be disarmed? Not to mention their biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction.

Israel has no right to be pointing fingers at anyone, much less attacking them.

EW – Let’s assume you are correct – this is about NK – and that the Israelis can prove they hit a ’nuclear’ facility – and then ’back into’ the photos to explain them.

Here’s what I get: The facility looks mainly like an industrial mineral washing operation, probably using the river to treat ore being mined nearby.

I’ll take a wild assed guess and suggest that radioactive isotopes of Uranium are found in naturally occuring trace amounts in certain mineral ores (phosphorus maybe?), and that that building represents a ’technology transfer’ from NK that literally uses the chemistry of Uranium to ’wash’ the trace amounts out and collect them. It might take hundreds, if not thousands, of tons of raw ore to gleen a single pound of fissionable Uranium, but the program – if successful – would be directly scalable with the amount of mineral mining in-Country.

The building in the picture may have been a ’proof of concept’ test facility to validate the process.

So, the Israelis run a special op to ’snatch’ the proof – a container of U239 – and then level the place with bombs to eliminate further production.

Just a guess, but it would explain the industrial facility, the ’nuclear’ characterization, a possible NK link, and the resulting ’quietness’ of Syria (because of a ’secret’ deal for nuclear ’technology’ from rogue Axis of Evil State, NK.)

freepatriot:

Can’t tell, these pictures aren’t ones he’s posted.
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone’s lying about location, though. That’s even assuming this was a nuke site of some kind – it certainly didn’t have a roof sign saying something like ’Syrian Dept of Energy and Weapons’!

Actually if you go to Google Earth you can find a the site in Syria on the river. The Google earth photos are recent and the image that shows up is the site at an earlier stage of construction. I found this place pretty easily last night.

Just done browsing all the previous comments… no assurance I read thoroughly, though.

1. I agree with the skepticism here.
Comparing these images with those brad blog has at http://www.bradblog.com/?p=1188 , the similarities are pretty much non-existent.

2. At http://www.isis-online.org/pub…..er2007.pdf – Anybody stating that a 32m x 24m building is similar to a 47m x 47m building is fairly foil hat to me.

3. On Google Earth, the site is essentially a stand-alone short, fat wadi (seasonal stream bed) with some sort of a square building, almost entirely by itself. Where is the outbuilding complex similar to the NK one? It isn’t there. I agree with a comment above that it loks more like a mineral processing plan, but not that it may be a uranium washing plant. Where are they going to put all the tailings? No evidence of any in the before-and-after images, nor on Google Earth. There is plenty of area above the bluff, where it is all desert for miles – but it all appears untouched, not counting some roads.

4. In the pre–post images I agree with Andrew Foland that the building site is not a hole, but pretty damned flat, though on Google Earth, the building appears to be on the slope of the wadi, so let me call it â€a sloping flattened areaâ€.

5. In the right-hand image I was looking for blast evidence surrounding the building site, and I don’t see any.

6. Same image: I don’t see any evidence of a fire, either.

7. Same image: Why do people accept â€ash†as an explanation? Ash on the scale shown there would be an end result of very, very hot hydrocarbons burning in high air-flow conditions, if I have my chemistry right – otherwise a lot of blackened materials. In this case, if any ash was there, there would be a lot of blackened material, too. But most construction in areas like the site would be concrete – which does not result in ash.

8. Same image: Small features fairly close to ground zero are undamaged. The Google Earth image (low angle) suggests a lot of sandy or dry soil, which would show craters from debris – but those are not in evidence to my mind.

9. Same image: I agree with whoever above suggested a doctored-up PhotoShop image, and rather ham-handed, at that. I’ve done better myself.

10. The â€pump building†at the isis web page seems far too small for a light water nuke site, as noted above by someone. But if it is a pump station (that does not even show up on Google, also as noted by someone – was IT drawn in, too?), where is the evidence of the PIPE running to the building? I see no way – in the images I see – that the pipe excavation wouldn’t be visible in any of the images. The wadi is in a short bluff zone of the river between river bottom land being farmed for miles in either direction. The slopes between the river and the wadi, plus the slopes of the wadi itself appear to be soft, dry, earth, and to be naturally eroded (not counting the road at 90 degrees to the necessary pipe). Yes, here in the U.S. pipelines are covered over well, but given the level of construction shown all over the site, it seems unlikely they’d have done more than cursory covering over the pipeline to and from the river.

11. Power lines. Does anyone see the high power lines necessary to carry the electricity to the cities and farms? There may be some along the river road, but where are the ones from the â€reactor building†and the road?

Taking the wadi site in the middle of nowhere, the lack of a building complex, the lack of power lines or pipeline evidence, the lack of blast evidence, and the similarity to the mobile WMD trailer posters Colin Powell embarrassed his sorry ass career with – I would have to say, this is highly unlikely to have been a nuclear site. I mean, it isn’t like buying a pole barn and a parking lot and purchasing a reactor and having it delivered one day. There are a LOT of infrastructure and operational needs. This site doesn’t appear to have 10% of what would be needed.

Yep, Fox spews had a NKorean building’s picture and measured 157’ and next to it, the Syrian building at 154’;….there ya go, proof.

Curiously tho, the Syrian’s were pretty quiet, and mostly said they chased the baddies away.
Why they didn’t take some reporters in immediately doesn’t speak well for them.
The lack of complaints from fellow Arab states also says something…usually they could make a pr effort to claim Israel is bullying and provocative , etc….
I’m going with sailmaker’s idea that this was an attack and probe on the newer equipment the Syrians just got from the Russians, some of which was to go to Iran. Again, it’s wierd the Syrians didn’t complain and turn it into a pr event.
Scuds with better chemical warheads may be the reason, too negative to explain. Some people have that as a theory.

Here are photos of a real nuclear site, Dimona in Israel.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/…..orona1.htm

And inside,

http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/photos.html

Radiofreewill – I went to Brad Blog link and it’s an Iranian site that was incorrectly identified as N. Korean. CNN later corrected.

Here’s my tinhat contribution. Look at small building upper left that survived the bombing. Assuming black edge along top side is its shadow, it is identical in both photos. Yet photos were taken more than two months apart. Not a shadow, perhaps?

what I like to know,what business has the terrorist state of Israel flying around and bombing their neighbors?
This is and act of war and aggression and should be acted upon by the United Nations.
Severe Sanctions should be implemented immediately and the responsible Israeli Warmongers need to be called to the Hague.

â€They are clearly trying to hide the evidence,†Albright said in an interview. â€It is a trick that has been tried in the past and it hasn’t worked.â€

Will the same standard apply to WTC or Pentagon after Sept 2001?